[MCRIPPPer]

hi. i built a cnc mini mill a few months ago and made lots of chips using mach 3 and ESS in demo mode i ran into the 500 line limit and it really bugged me. i dont really want to pay the near 200 usd for mach3(which has lots of annoying problems i cant fix). i got a new pc for the mill (lenovo thinkcentre m57) and decided to try linuxcnc. im running it off of the parallel port now. i dont like the performance drop after using the ethernetsmoothstepper, but linux cnc seems to work pretty well.

i do have an issue though. if i enter m03 or m04 command into mdi, the spindle turns on, but then i can no longer enter any more commands into MDI. i then have to hit the estop and reset to get it to work again. it runs gcode files no problem, just the mdi is messed up. all other gcodes seem to work fine in mdi.

next question is about the mesa 5i25. my pc has a 5v pci bus on it, so i could upgrade to this board. will this give me similar performance to the ESS?

after about 1 hour the latency test says i have 42945 and 12666.

[MCRIPPPer]

another issue i found is that i cant jog or enter mdi commands if i stop a program before it finishes.

[PCW_MESA]

The 5I25's hardware stepgenerator should be as good as the ESS

Its capable of approximately 8 MHz step rates with 32 bit frequency resolution
and all step timings are settable with 30 ns resolution

The 5I25 works equally well in 5V and 3.3V PCI slots

[MCRIPPPer]

ok.
so can the mesa card do high speeds even on a sort of slow pc?or is the max step frequency still limited by pc?

[PCW_MESA]

Yes, the step rate of a hardware stepgenerator like the one in the 5I25 is not limited by the computers speed
(though you want a reasonably fast PC so that its pleasant to use)

[MCRIPPPer]

thanks. this is encouraging. im hoping i can easily sort out my issues in linux cnc and convert over fully from mach3. (still had to boot up windows and mach to finish a part because of messed up MDI).


BTW im running linuxcnc v2.5 installed off of a cd.


do my latency numbers seem fairly typical for an old pc?

[ger21]

You normally shouldn't see a performance increase in Mach3 from the parallel port to the ESS, unless you have a very slow PC and need to run at over 45Khz??

another issue i found is that i cant jog or enter mdi commands if i stop a program before it finishes.

If you mean jog during feedhold, I don't think you can in LinuxCNC.

[MCRIPPPer]

i never actually used the parallel port on mach 3. but i was able to go over 6000mm/min with 5mm pitch screws and 8 microsteps without loosing any steps. the parallel port just seems to run rough compared to my smoothstepper as well.

but i dont really care about that as much as the mdi problem.


and the jog problem happened when i actually stopped the program completely.(not pause/feed hold)

[javanree]

You will want to upgrade LinuxCNC to the latest 2.6 release, loads of good updates have been done... check the wiki article at LinuxCNC Documentation Wiki: UpdatingTo2.6 for upgrading.

Regarding the M3 issue ; what happens if you afterwards issue an M30 in MDI, does that give you back control?

[MCRIPPPer]

well before the mdi would not even let me type into it after a spindle start command. i would have to trigger e stop to reset. tried again today and now it works, but the computer seems to go slow when the spindle is on. i have to wait a second before entering each character into the mdi line. then it seemed to think i was holding the zero key down and put about a thousand zeros into the mdi.(new keyboard so keys were not stuck.)

[javanree]

That sounds like an incorrect machine configuration or picking up interference somewhere....

[MCRIPPPer]

just upgraded to 2.6



what configs should i look at?

[javanree]

Spindle control in the stepconf wizard
Hard to say exactly but perhaps you've set PWM or some other feature while you are not using it or something like this?
What hardware do you have? My X4-800 (a 3040 router) only uses the spindle CW signal which drives a relay to the VFD, this works fine. I need to set RPMs on the VFD manual for now.

As for the latency numbers , with a Lenovo M57 I'd expect a lot better. Have you looked into any tuning, like the isolcpu option? I am running quite a bit lower on an older Thinkcentre A55 (away from the machine right now so can't check)

[MCRIPPPer]

i have a sieg sx2 mill. it uses 0-5v pot to change speed. i made a little optoisolated board that converts pwm to 0-5v for spindle rpm.

i will look into tuning the pc.

[MCRIPPPer]

The 5I25's hardware stepgenerator should be as good as the ESS

Its capable of approximately 8 MHz step rates with 32 bit frequency resolution
and all step timings are settable with 30 ns resolution

The 5I25 works equally well in 5V and 3.3V PCI slots

i ordered a 5i25 a while ago. i emailed mesa and never heard back(emailed twice asking about the ETA of the board). where is everyone at mesa? is there a supply issue of the 5i25?

[PCW_MESA]

i ordered a 5i25 a while ago. i emailed mesa and never heard back(emailed twice asking about the ETA of the board). where is everyone at mesa? is there a supply issue of the 5i25?

We still have a fair sized backlog so individual orders may take a few weeks.

[MCRIPPPer]

ok thanks. i was worried when they would not respond back through email.